The BBC reports on a Turing scholar's recent claims that by today's standard of evidence, there's reason to doubt the commonly-held belief that the famed computing pioneer committed suicide in response to government persecution over his homosexuality. To be clear, he does not claim to have disproved the suicide theory -- only that the cyanide poisoning that killed Turing could well have been an accident caused by his careless at-home experimentation with dangerous chemicals.

There's no proof he was any more a war criminal then, say, Gunter Grass. Or, to put it another way, he was no more a war criminal than the 185,067 other men who joined the SS before him, often under as much co-ercion as he was. Or, if more evidence is required, he was actually arrested at one point by the Gestapo.

I really don't think that the Americans were shifting him away from Soviet control because they thought that the Soviets were going to try him as a war criminal. It could be more due to the fact that he'd invented military rocketry, and they wanted it and didn't want the Reds to have it.

Or, yes, they were all pro-Nazi scum trying to help the war criminals they'd been fighting escape any way they could...

That's ridiculous. They could have lost the proof? The army could also have shot the judge, because they're under the control of the executive branch!

That something could notionally and illegally have happened does not mean it was a viable option. What you are proposing is that governmental officials should have committed a crime to protect a guilty individual on the basis of his war service, while also ignoring one of the most fundamental principles of English law.

Whether we believe that what was a crime then should never have been a crime is irrelevant: reduced to principles, that is what you are saying should have happened. The law must be equal in its application, and there is a reason why Justice is blindfolded.

That something could notionally and illegally have happened does not mean it was a viable option.

Deciding not to prosecute is a legal and a viable option. Just like no one is going to prioritise pranksters over murderers. Or will you call it a injustice and illegal action that the prosecutors are not going after your local praknskters?

Deciding what evidence to present is also a legal and viable option that is used every day in every justice system. That is why I put the word lost in quotes.